


Crossing the Line

by cordeliadelayne



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Castiel-centric, Gen, Introspective Castiel, POV Castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-18
Updated: 2016-10-18
Packaged: 2018-08-22 15:42:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8291255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cordeliadelayne/pseuds/cordeliadelayne
Summary: Now Castiel is no longer favoured by Heaven he has a lot of time to contemplate the choices he will make.  Set roughly around the first few eps of Season 5.Originally posted to Livejournal in 2009.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seraphina_snape](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seraphina_snape/gifts).



> Written for seraphina_snape as part of the Fall Fandom Free-For-All who gave the prompt “Castiel walks among men, but he is not human”.

The world was dark now, dark and cold. Castiel was standing on the edge of the cliff, staring down at the twinkling lights of the city far below. He was all alone; no harsh whispers from his brothers and sisters, no comforting belief that his Father was watching out for him, no aimless chatter with Dean on the phone. Completely and inexorably alone.

It was such a foreign feeling to him that it was almost too much for him to process. He walked among the humans, saw the ways they connected and the ways they fell apart. Saw so much that he would never be able to explain. He was certain though that they would never know the true feeling of righteousness as he had. Would never feel the tendrils of another essence inside their mind. And yet, for all that, they were happy.

There was an essential hopefulness in humanity, even at the most trying of times, which shone like a beacon. They were as beautiful as any of his own kind, and yet they would never truly see their own beauty. Not until they joined the ranks of Heaven. And by that time it was probably already too late.

Castiel sighed and look down at his own feet, wearing the shoes that Jimmy Novak had put on with barely a thought for where they might lead him. He felt the weight of Heaven’s eyes upon him, even as he was certain that for the moment he was shielded from Zachariah and his ilk.

He was worried that those killed during the Apocalypse were not being received by Heaven.

He had no real proof, just a cold certainty that life for the humans was never going to return to normal. Too much had changed, too many certainties rendered asunder. Whoever won would not be able to repair the damage, if of course they even wanted to. It was all far too late.

#####

Castiel closed his eyes and the next moment he was standing in a busy street in a small Midwestern town. He side-stepped the busy shoppers, each intent only on their own purpose, their own worries. They were all just ordinary humans, ordinary beings under the province of his Father, and all of them were destined to die horrible deaths.

Some of the people looked askance at his approach, but mostly they ignored him. If he did not factor in their immediate lives, then he was invisible. Unimportant.

An angel of the lord was no more than an insignificant creature in the eyes of the humans he had sworn to protect. He huffed a soft laugh to himself and wandered over to the nearest row of shops, using the reflection in the windows to further observe the crowd around him. He knew he would never fit into this world, just as he know knew with a terrifying certainty that he would never be able to fit into the world of his Brothers and Sisters. Not again.

He could not Fall, but he could not stay as he was either.

#####

The stars twinkled in the sky and the moon was bright, yet to Castiel all was shielded in darkness. He wanted to be among the humans, had come here amongst them, so that he could learn their ways. But things were not as he had imagined.

He had seen their greatness and their evil, their love and their anger. He saw the beauty in his Father’s creations in a way his family did not. And he recognised so many of their own conflicts deep within himself. His very Grace itched with indecision and confusion.

He found himself wanting human contact, wondering where Dean and his brother were.

He looked human, or at least his vessel did. But he did not feel as humans did, did not think as they did. He needed the Winchesters to anchor him to this world. He needed them in a way he didn’t think they would ever understand. Their faith in each other was exactly what he too needed.

He still had faith in his Father, but he didn’t know whether he would be able to trust Him without question. He was more than a little concerned that after everything, his Father would not wish to look upon his own.

He found an empty bench to sit upon and watched the dwindling crowds passing by. He knew that it was getting late as all the shops were starting to shut up, people were hurrying home to be with their families, to share their humanity with others who would understand them simply because they, too, were the same.

Castiel ached for that kind of understanding. His Grace sank at the thought of being here, alone, forever among the humans but never one of them.

It wasn’t as if he truly wanted to be one of them. He was an angel of the Lord and for all his doubts that still meant something. That was still _important._

He sighed and looked down at his hands. Such fragile sculptures of skin and bones, and yet all he had to do was raise them and the power that was his divinely given could crush the breath out of hordes of humans before they even had the chance to offer one last prayer to his Father.

That was what he must cling to. The knowledge of his power and that what he was doing was Right, even if the humans, particularly if the humans, would not be able to understand.

They were not angels. They did not think as angels did. They did not walk amongst their brethren in the hallowed ground of Heaven. They did not fight together on the plains of time and space.

They were beauteous creations of his Father’s love, but it was the angels that his Father held close to him. It was always so and it would always be so.

Angels knew better. He would find his Father and he would _make_ him stop the folly of his brothers.

And what the humans wanted was irrelevant.

What the Winchesters wanted, most of all.


End file.
